Babiana spiralis
species of plant
Babiana spiralis or coil-leaf Bobbejaantjie is a perennial flowering plant and geophyte belonging to the Iridaceae. Flowering plants are mostly between 25–55 cm (9.8–21.7 in) high, with an erect stem with usually two to six branches and velvety hairhy. It has narrowly lance- to line-shaped, pleated leaves. It has strongly mirror-symmetrical, pink to mauve-blue and yellow flowers, smelling of Freesia.
Description
The coil-leaf Bobbejaantjie stands about 25–55 cm (9.8–21.7 in) tall. Its stem grows straight up, usually splitting into 2 to 6 branches, and is covered in very short, soft fuzzy hairs. The very narrow, grass-like leaves are only about 1.5 to 2.5 millimetres wide. These leaves have parallel folds like an accordion, twist and curl towards their tip and often have a clear stalk-like base up to 4 cm long. The veins and edges are rough to the touch, and the base of the leaf has long hairs rather than a web-like fuzz. Every flower is subtended by two, gradually tapering bracts that are green at the bottom, but the top third is dry, with few tiny hairs or stiff and bristly down the middle of their lower half.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Babiana spiralis” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Babiana, spiralis and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Babiana spiralis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.